The 12th Symposium on Cochlear Implants in Children will offer opportunities for the dissemination and sharing of knowledge that are unique when compared to the other meetings listed. The symposia will offer a clear focus on pediatric cochlear implants with significant attendance expected by North Americans from all disciplines involved with pediatric cochlear implant research, development, and clinical care. The program will emphasize areas identified as being of high interest and relevance in the field. The invited speakers will introduce topics in implantation of the very young child, bilateral implantation in children, and neural preservation/residual hearing in children. These topics which will be further deliberated in panels and free paper and poster presentations. The thirteen invited speakers chosen for this symposium will bring fresh ideas into the pediatric cochlear implant arena in the United States in the hope of stimulating innovative thinking by professionals in audiology, speech/language pathology, surgery/medicine, education, engineering and from industry representatives. A second aim will be to encourage deeper deliberation not only on key issues targeted in this symposium but on topics in the full spectrum of pediatric cochlear implantation and related areas. Oral presentations and poster sessions will present current research over a very broad range of topics including medicine/surgery, education, aural habilitation, speech and language development, the impact of early intervention, clinical viability and patient access, auditory neuroscience, engineering, and pertinent pharmacology. The three areas of emphasis (implantation in the very young child, bilateral implantation, and residual hearing/neural preservation) were chosen based on issues receiving prominent attention in the current literature and based upon a survey of selected leaders in the field of pediatric cochlear implantation. One additional invited speaker will be funded to address recent advances in medical genetics. His lecture will not be included in the morning invited speaker sessions but will be featured in an afternoon session devoted to genetics. This lecture will be done on Thursday since it fits in the theme of the diagnosis of very young children. These topics were determined to be areas of undisputed clinical importance. Increased opportunities for presenting data from eighteen students will be aided by the funds requested in this proposal to provide travel and lodging. Meeting fees will be waived for students and invited speakers. One American speaker, who will be flown in from her sabbatical in New Zealand for this symposium (Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, Ph.D.), will also be aided by the requested funds for foreign travel. Seattle offers a preferred venue with easy airport and rail access to delegates from the United States. The principle goal of this symposium will be to provide an environment to discuss current research on the complex issues specific to cochlear implants in the pediatric population in order to provide direction for future research, education, clinical care, and technological development. A wide range of basic scientists and clinicians will contribute to planned sessions of submitted talks and poster sessions.